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Monday, 31 July 2017

Oldhammer Weekend 2017: Bryan's all new cabinets of chaos and other painted miniatures

Many famous Realm of Chaos era models rank up here. The vivid colours never really translated into 1980s publications and these models need to be seen with the naked eye to appreciate fully.

Since my last visit to the Wargames Foundry, Bryan Ansell's incredible collection of painted miniatures has had somewhat of a refurbishment. Additionally cabinets have been installed and a plethora of new models have been extracted from deep storage and placed lovingly upon rows and rows of shelving. Having restricted time this year, I took a number of hurried snaps of as much as I could before leaving and many of the photographs have a bit of glass flare. Hopefully, on my next visit I can take a more sedate approach, and get the glass doors unscrewed, to ensure that everything is covered in detail for those who cannot yet make the trip to Newark.

Still, as you will have seen in with the opening photograph there is still a great deal to see. Too much to see, really, and these cabinets reward repeated study. I have provided a caption it each image to bring to attention some of the models in the frame but this collection of images is but a fraction of the total collection on display.

Enjoy the journey - what can you spot?

Three Marauder mercenary ogres. These all appeared in multiple issues of White Dwarf back in the day.

Bryan's collection contains many of the scenry buildings built as part of Phil Lewis' famous series of articles, and many that were never published. One day I would like to take a closer look at these models. Three beautiful Slaves to Darkness era mounted chaos knights parade before them.

More of the wonderfully constructed Warhammer buildings.

Rogue Trader era marines, chaos champions and other renegades. The original Space Zoats can be seen on the back left. Can you spot two of the original titans amongst the other walkers on these two shelves?

More Rogue Trader marines and titans. Beautiful models.

More Realms of Chaos models including some of the famous Jes Goodwin champions.

More of the Realm of Chaos champions.

And yet more of the Realm of Chaos champions, amny of which are very famous models from many editions of classic White Dwarf. How many can you spot?

The famous Marauder Dwarfs and the two sets of Dwarf Regiments of Renown: Bugman's and Prince Ulther's.

The original Blood Bowl range, complete with Gouged Eye and some of the Dwarf Chaos team. Can you spot the pogo goblins and the BB ogres?

The halfling team, a myriad of elves and Star Players - oh, and the original Death-Roller. These were all new on the shalves and I hadn't seen them 'in the lead' so to speak before.

A mix of Marauder and Citadel Elves.

Preslotta slann, painted by Kev Adams way back when, again these were on display for the first time.

Citadel crossbows and an assortment of other feudals and vikings.

Gloriously painted Marauder fighters and...

...the original Travelling Players, out of retirement and supporting your favourite village fayre in the near future!

Masses of chaos stuff, early sci-fi figures used to develop Rogue Trader - can you spot the Moon Duke?

Metal prototype skeleton horses. Sorry, but I failed to get the Advanced Heroquest Henchmen into frame!

Underneath Kev's old slann models are a number of John Blanche originals.

I have always loved the pink horror conversion model since it first appeared in White Dwarf, and thankfully it has survived the decades and now lives on display inside the Foundry Shop. This is a model I will return to again and again!

Yes, Bryan has found the original Mike McVey Heroquest models. These are exquisitely painted and bought many a tear to the eye of a jaded grognard! You can see a better shot of the wonderful Advanced Heroquest Henchmen below.

Remember these conversions from 'Eavy Metal? Though I think the slug spawn appeared in The Lost and the Danmed too.

Some of the independent daemons created for The Lost and the Damned can be seen here along with the unreleased cleric figure with a frog in his hand.

As I said earlier, I didn't have the same amount of time this year to make much of an inroad to the models on show on the tables, but I still managed to get a few interesting snaps which you can see here. There are loads of much better images out there and I'll do a little mini post laster this week and organise all of the blog links that cover the event into a single handy location.

I was very pleased to see these old Dark Future bikers. I have one of these models somewhere and have been inspired to locate it and get it painted.

Lovely converted Dark Future cars including 'Pervy the Death Beetle' on the right.

One of the original interceptors from the Dark Future box set, alongside a police vehicle.

I mentioned that there were some lovely squats on Richard Legg's table, and here are some of them complete with paperback edition of Rogue Trader. These are such characterful models.

Whiskey Priest and Airborngrove's table had some classic chaos warriors on show, these two Nurglesque models caught my eye. Beautiful bluish armour on the model on the right, don't you think?

More figures from the same table: I love the rock elemental paint job here, complete with the lichen growing all over his limbs. An evocative touch.

Barbarians in combat with another elemental, this time the water version. Again, this figure was beautifully painted and based. The simple but effective shield designs in black and yellow are also worth a mention.

One of the greatest warhammer figures ever sculpted, surely?

Chris High King of the Elves amazed us all with his causal unloading of 'some' of his third edition elf army. Still, WIP mind but quite the most wonderful display of elves I think I have ever had the pleasure of viewing. If what you can see here impresses you then check out the next few images.

Only three more chariots!!?

Dragons!!!!?

And yet more dragons... and this is just part of his larger collection. Envious anyone?

And the man himself. You can see the foam containers with all of the infantry models residing within them on the table. Hopefully, Chris can get these figures based and finished for a big game in the autumn.

As I mentioned last post, Nigel Stillman brought along his Bretonnian forces to much rejoicing. Many of these models had seen extensive conversion work while others were original sculpts.

The baggage train in all it's glory - sorry that the corner is blurred!

A close up of the vehicle (can you work out where the wheels came from) and it is worth noting that Nigel has used actual material in the creation of the wagon top. This has given the model a nice texture don't you think?

Another, lower shot of Nigel's troops. Note the converted Green Knight figure and John of Arc to the far left.

And finally, I cannot recall whose lovely Maurader dwarves these were but I am sure that you agree they are a worthy choice to end this little run down!! (:

Right, that is your lot for today. Next post will see me going through much of the artwork that was on display, mostly from the Grandmaster of Chaos Tony Ackland, but also some other pieces from Bryan's collection we have not talked about before.

Lovely collection of models, and enough to make everyone envious. Bryan really should get all these models professionally photographed in a studio setting for posterity (a book could even be produced to sell and help support the Oldhammer event if GW doesn't still hold the copyright on the images of the models?). Many of these minis were old when I began collecting and painting in the mid 1990s, so seeing them outside of tiny little pictures in WD is a real treat.

I also Mutarchus, see the Tzeentch sorcerer with a single Horror hand. He was part of Dale Hurst's Tzeentch warband in WD#134; I used to spend hours reading and re-reading that article and the inspirational advice within.

You know, I was thinking of the same article when taking some of these snaps. In truth, the sheer about of figures on show now is totally overwhelming as Bryan seems to have most of the figures that appeared in WD. I guess the remnants that GW display must be the ones he didn't want! (;

Great stuff! Good to see that old broo standard bearer from Heroes from Wargames.

I'd love to see more of the miniature under the pink-horror conversion - a John Blanche conversion and paint job, I think. It looks like it might have the body of a C15 armoured orc (like the beast-headed creature next to it), but it's hard to be sure.

By the way, those gnarly trolls are the Perry C20 range. For my money, they're the best trolls Citadel ever made. The Tom Meier ones are great, as are the Aly Morrison ones, but there's something about the Perry ones that gets the combination of comedy and monstrosity just right. Drawings of them were used to illustrate various Warhammer editions - there's one on the cover of 2nd, and a drawing of Shakined Bone Bender in both 2nd and 3rd, I think.

Thanks for the ID on those trolls as there weren't figures I could recall seeing before. Comedy and monstrosity is a fine explanation of them, and '80s Warhammer in general. Its all a bit too po-faced now. I will try and get some decent photos of those Blanche models when I am next at Foundry, though shopping around other blogs may reveal more in the meantime.